Heart of a Huntsman

by Liam Reese

  Keluse listened to them all debating the future of the tent town and all its inhabitants, remaining silent but with Besmir’s ideals in the back of her mind. Running had not been in his plans. Nor had sitting idly by and waiting for death to come to them. Besmir had never been one to back down or take the easy path rather than the correct one. Keluse realized she must remind these men of the hunter’s disposition.

  “Besmir wouldn’t just sit and wait for Tiernon to come back,” she said abruptly. “You all know that.” Keluse looked at their surprised expressions, heat coloring her cheeks.

  “Keluse speaks the truth,” Ranyor said immediately. “All here swore an oath to serve Besmir as king. His word should remain law.”

  “And exactly how are we supposed to decide how to proceed?” Zaynorth asked. “With Besmir unable to make the decisions?”

  “A vote?” Keluse suggested.

  “Never works without a complete government,” Herofic grunted. “We need a new figurehead. Someone who can speak for Besmir, lead the people.” He looked pointedly at his brother.

  Zaynorth shook his head, spreading his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “Do not look to me for this,” he said. “I am not a leader of men, let alone women and children.”

  “You are known to all here,” Ranyor told the old man. “As Besmir’s adviser and second, they would listen to you.”

  Keluse watched as the mage’s face showed his despair. He tugged at his beard as he looked at them all with pained eyes.

  “To lead was never my intent,” he said, as if explaining his guilt. “Besmir is king... I...” He trailed off.

  “We need a leader,” Herofic said. “Those people out there need a leader also. Whether it was your intent or not, Brother, you are that leader.” He looked at each member of the council in turn. “Any objections?”

  Zaynorth watched his friends and family shake their heads slowly, sealing his fate. He bowed his head, remaining silent for a time.

  “Bring me the prisoner,” he said eventually.

  17

  Fiends delved inside his body, teeth ripping at flesh that did not disappear. Besmir’s mind was consumed in a world of searing, tearing agony from which he could not escape. It was relentless, unending, and he welcomed the moment his mind began to slip into madness, welcomed the relief it would bring.

  Screams filled his ears. To begin with they were solely his own, but other voices joined his at some point, high-pitched squeals punctuated by whip-like cracks and the boiling hiss of what sounded like steam.

  Besmir felt the creatures flinch as they feasted on his lungs, chewed his intestines and delved inside his immortal body. The pain began to subside as something smashed and burned the demons from his body, sending them screaming from his torture.

  He lay on the sharp ground, his eyes squeezed tightly shut until his brain registered the fact he was no longer being eaten alive. When he opened his eyes, another creature stood over him, alternating his amused face between Besmir and scanning the landscape for danger.

  “Shall we leave before the Ghoma come back?” It asked in a deep, growling voice.

  The creature leaned down, offering its scaled, seven-fingered hand to Besmir. He took it without a thought. Anything that was not trying to eat him alive was a safe bet, he assumed. Its fingers clamped shut around his hand, holding him like a vice and lifting him with ease from the floor. Besmir felt himself floating above the ground and looked down to see his bare feet were no longer anchored to the world.

  The creature turned its horned head to him with an almost kind smile and nodded once before the world melted around them.

  Besmir’s stomach dropped as if he was falling. Yet his eyes told him he was falling horizontally. Flashing across hundreds of leagues of ashen landscape in seconds. His eyes picked out cities. Structures that no human mind could have conceived of were filled with dark writhing forms that reached for them as they flew overhead. He automatically pulled his feet up despite being miles above them, and heard laughter from the creature.

  “I will ensure your safety,” it said.

  They carried on, sometimes skimming the surface of this savage world, sometimes so far above its surface that Besmir could not make out the ground. Fear and exhilaration vied for dominance in his chest as the hunter watched this world pass beneath him.

  Eventually the creature slowed, floating down towards the ground which was completely different here than the rest of the world. Trees grew here, although they were grey in both branch and leaf. A grey pool was fed by a small brook that sprung to life from nothing. Something splashed in the water as Besmir looked, and his eyes picked out a glimmering fish, its scales glowing with some kind of inner light. The structure was a simple but elegant thing of wood and stone, larger than many houses he had seen but not palatial. Contrasting layers of grey wood had been alternated to make a pleasing exterior, and a pair of wide doors stood open, welcoming them both.

  “Welcome to my home,” the creature said. “I was once called Joranas, you are?”

  “Besmir,” he said, shaking the hand the creature still held.

  Joranas frowned deeply, the finer scales around his eyes shifting as if he remembered something important. He let go of Besmir’s hand and guided him inside the house.

  The furnishings were large and padded with luxurious cushions Besmir sank into gratefully when Joranas bid him to sit. The contrast between this softness and the harshness of the rest of this world was not lost on Besmir, and he began to ask the questions that piled into his mind now that he felt a little safer.

  “What is this place?”

  “My home,” Joranas growled in his deep voice.

  “And this whole place?” Besmir asked.

  “Are you human?” Joranas asked.

  A flash of worry slapped at Besmir then. His head swung to regard the creature warily.

  Joranas chuckled. “Do not worry,” he said with a smirk. “It is not my intent to injure or consume. I simply need to know your origin in order to adequately explain this place.”

  Besmir nodded slowly. “Yes, I’m human,” he said.

  Joranas stood, pacing around his home. Besmir studied him more closely, seeing how his scales moved over each other silently, each one oiled by something his body secreted. Three horns jutted from his head, pulling his skull into an almost triangular shape, and his near-black eyes had oval pupils.

  “I also was human when I first came here,” Joranas rumbled. “Centuries ago. This form you see has been molded, shaped by this world. It is the only thing I cannot affect.”

  To demonstrate, Joranas gestured, and a section of the floor bulged upward. The wood planks melted and changed, becoming something else. Besmir’s fascination grew as a five-foot-high rabbit appeared before his eyes, ears flat to its body and nose twitching. Every aspect of it was perfect, from the wetness of its eyes to the apparent softness of every hair. It darted from the house, light grey tail flashing as it ran until it reached the edge of the altered land around Joranas’s home and exploded into dust, falling like misty rain to the ground once more.

  “This place is a conduit,” Joranas said when Besmir turned his attention back. “Like a hallway between your world and a place so horrific, so incredibly awful, it would shatter your mind to even see.” Joranas gestured and a cup appeared in his hand. “The Ghoma that fed on you were sent by a being that resides there, prototypes if you will, that were sent to try and discover a way for him to get to your world.” He sipped at whatever was in the cup.

  Besmir licked his lips. Neither hungry or thirsty here, a sudden need had arisen inside him. His throat was dry, his lips cracked, and Joranas fashioned a goblet beside him, the liquid dark and inviting. Besmir grabbed it, gulping down the contents madly. The liquid flowed endlessly, the goblet refilling as he gulped it down, never ending in the same way the brook did outside.

  “Just one of the curses here,” Joranas said, making the goblets disappear. “You can eat an
d drink but never feel satiated.”

  Despair hit Besmir as he grabbed at the goblet, feeling the dust as it fell through his fingers.

  “How do I get back?” he asked eagerly.

  “Back?” Joranas said in surprise. “There is no back. If you are here, it means you are dead in the world of humans. Your body is being returned to the soil from which it came and your spirit resides here now.”

  A wrenching sensation grabbed Besmir’s stomach. Like intense hunger but a thousand times more painful. An ache that no amount of food could ever remove. He hunched forward in an attempt to ease it, but nothing helped. A low moan ripped from his throat.

  “Grief,” Joranas said sympathetically. “I take it you had loved ones, friends?” Besmir nodded. “Your soul yearns for them, feels for them, knowing it will never see them again.”

  “Is this hell?” Besmir groaned.

  “It might as well be,” Joranas said. “There is no escape, no going back, and everything you once cared for is gone.”

  Besmir heard the note of finality in his deep growl, but something inside him refused to give up.

  “There must be a way,” he said, standing. “There must be some way to get back. If this is a hallway between worlds, there must be a door I can get through to go back.”

  “The door is there,” Joranas said. “I can take you to it, but without a body to return to, you will fade into nothing and cease to be.” He turned his reptilian eyes towards Besmir. “I have seen it,” he added.

  “Are there any other people here?” Besmir asked. “Others like me?” Joranas shook his head, waving his horns.

  “One other passed this way,” he said sadly. “She tried to go back, return to the world of the living as something pulled her there. I watched her disappear. Her spirit faded and disappeared.”

  “Rather eternal nothingness than this,” Besmir grumbled. “I do not understand how you have managed for centuries.”

  “There are entertainments,” Joranas said with a savage, toothy grin. “Entertainments you might just find it worth remaining for.”

  Besmir frowned in confusion. “What entertainments?” he asked.

  “There are a few things you need to learn first,” Joranas said. “Let me show you.”

  Joranas walked outside and held his hands out to the sky.

  “As you are probably aware, this plane of existence is...hostile,” Joranas said, an understatement. “Yet there are things you can do to shield yourself from the elements here. Clothing and armor can be fashioned with the power of your mind.”

  “Really?” Besmir asked skeptically.

  “How do you think I maintain my home?” Joranas asked. “You must first visualize what it is you wish to create,” he added. “Be as detailed as you can. If you wish to have chain mail, imagine every link, every rivet that holds it together. With clothing, you must imagine each stitch, every minute aspect of what it is you want to appear or it will be useless and fall to pieces immediately as you use it.” Joranas swung his head towards Besmir. “Can you do that?”

  “I can try,” Besmir said.

  “Try hard,” Joranas told him. “Clothe yourself before you return.”

  The large, demonic figure turned and walked away from Besmir, letting the acidic grit in the wind hammer at him again. His entire being felt as if it was being scoured with grit stones, robbing him of concentration.

  “How do I do this?” he screamed into the air.

  Besmir looked about but saw nothing. He was alone again. Joranas had gone.

  He said to imagine what you want. As detailed as you can. So do that.

  Besmir drew in his mind. The leather clothing he once wore in life, constructing it in his thoughts in painstaking detail. He recalled his stitching where it had been necessary to make repairs, the color, even how it felt against his skin. He stood there as the wind cut at him and concentrated harder than he ever had before. It felt as if time stretched off into eternity as Besmir fought to hold the image of his clothing in his mind, but eventually he came to understand the wind did not cut him as deeply, the pain was lessened. Besmir opened his eyes and saw he was clad in the leather clothing he had imagined.

  “Good,” Joranas said, making him jump. “That took me a great deal longer when first I arrived here.”

  “What else can I make?” Besmir asked eagerly.

  Joranas smiled and gestured, a twenty-foot eagle rising from the surface of the planet. Each feather was lovingly created, catching an imaginary wind. Besmir saw Joranas’ creations were made from the fabric of the world itself. “Where is this place?” He asked, carefully crafting a rabbit from the glassy ash around them.

  “Somewhere between here and there,” Joranas replied cryptically.

  Joranas conjured an immense dragon, muscular and powerful, that cooked and ate the rabbit Besmir had perfected.

  “What kind of answer is that?” Besmir demanded, angry that his creation had not been allowed to live for long.

  “The only one I have,” Joranas said, chuckling at Besmir’s anger. “As far as I can understand, there are many worlds, many planes of existence. This is one, your world is another, there might be thousands, millions, I do not know.” Joranas shrugged his massive shoulders. “But imagine they are stacked atop each other like sheets of parchment.” He held his hands out one on top of the other. “There are a few beings that can move between worlds and fewer still that are forced to. Yet even the most powerful, the most accomplished travelers, cannot jump a layer. They have to traverse one world to gain access to the next.”

  Besmir frowned in thoughtful confusion.

  “So my world, here, and the world where the thing that makes the Ghoma is, they are all neighboring worlds?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes,” Joranas said, sounding impressed. “I have to say you are quite open to this. Does it not confuse you at all?”

  “I just watched you create a dragon from nothing but ash and your own imagination,” Besmir said. “Confusion is just about all I have now.”

  Joranas kept pushing Besmir in the following weeks, urging him to create numerous objects over and over, perfecting them at speed. He concentrated, willing the world around him to change, bend to his will and become a sword. He felt the hilt forming in his fist and pulled gently, removing a six-foot blade from the planet’s surface. He swung it, feeling virtually no weight to the thing.

  “Good,” Joranas growled. “You are beginning to grasp the basics.”

  “Basics?” Besmir asked as he changed the sword into an arrow that shot from his hand through a target he pulled from the ash. “What more is there to learn?”

  “You are adept at conjuring things that are familiar to you,” Joranas said. “Yet what about the abstract? What can you imagine? It is possible to craft anything here,” he added.

  Besmir thought for a second. He brought forth a gush of water, a grey fountain that bubbled from the ground at his feet, the same height he was.

  “Mundane!” Joranas shouted.

  Besmir changed his fountain, turning the water into fire. He could feel the heat boiling from it and grinned at Joranas.

  “What about a fire fountain?” he asked.

  “Better,” Joranas said. “Anything else?”

  Besmir frowned at the thing’s negativity. In the space of just a few weeks he had managed to hone abilities he had not known he had and brought a gout of grey flame into existence where nothing existed before.

  “What more do you want?” he demanded angrily, letting the flame fail, the dust falling back to the ground.

  “Direct your rage at another target,” Joranas said calmly.

  “What other target?”

  Joranas held his hand out, making the world flow by beneath them as he had when they had first met. Besmir watched in fear as the pillar of rock grew in his eyes, immense and foreboding. He could see the Ghoma gathered at its base, and his spirit recalled the anguish he had felt when they had eaten him alive.

  J
oranas floated over them, releasing his hand abruptly and letting Besmir fall.

  “There are your targets!” he called. “Return if you are victorious.”

  Besmir watched him wink out of existence as he hit the ground, surrounded by the ravening Ghoma. Some bore wounds from where Joranas had attacked them before, but still remained horribly powerful. They screamed when they saw him, advancing as a unit to consume his soul eternally.

  Panic gripped Besmir so tightly, he could do nothing. One Ghoma wrapped a wet appendage round his arm and dragged him off balance towards it. Others joined, preparing to feed, their horrible teeth clacking against each other in anticipation. Besmir felt something bite at his fingers and the bright pain brought him back to his senses.

  He bellowed in defiance, casting a spike through the nearest Ghoma.

  It screamed horribly, flinching back from his conjured weapon. Besmir thought and fire ripped from the planet, burning and searing the demonic things but leaving him completely intact. The Ghoma flinched back from him in fright, their cowardice maddening Besmir even more.

  “Happy to savage someone who’s weak and defenseless but run from someone who can fight back?”

  Filled with battle rage and hate for these things, Besmir whipped forward, slamming into the Ghoma with his spirit and shredding them with needle-sharp blades he conjured from the world.

  Their screams of pain and fear fueled his rage, and he lashed at them, savagely cutting their malformed bodies into pieces that flopped and flapped like suffocating fish. His incandescent rage was fueled by the loss and grief that gnawed at him.

  Arteera. Keluse. Zaynorth. Ranyor. Herofic.

  Besmir would smash the life from these things , make these things suffer for what he had lost.

  By the time he had shredded and burned the Ghoma, leaving them in mewling piles of raw agony, he was exhausted, panting and spent but satiated for now. He turned and started to trudge away from the pillar but had no idea which way to go to return. The thought hit him that he did not need to walk. If Joranas could fly, Besmir could fly too, and he willed himself into the air, watching as the world dropped from beneath his feet.